Half-Life
by Fillyjonk
Summary: Post-Reichenbach, John POV. Angst. Sadness. Full of love, but the only reason to keep the kiddies away is the emotional trauma they experienced watching the last 20 minutes of "The Reichenbach Fall." I have no Britpickers, and would be delighted to be told if I've made any silly American errors here. Trying to save the fandom from awkward constructions, and all that.


In the first days, it is all he can do to see the muted world in front of him. Tea. Black suit. Reporters. Street. Stairway.

All incidental to the world behind his eyes. Leave a note. Leave a note when. Goodbye John. And then the world is stilled by the roaring in his ears the glare and rush of light unfocused, a black shape falling, vomit rising in his throat, and the metal smell of blood, and when they roll him over, the hair: soaked, soaking, and the staring eyes and John's legs go out from under him.

He tells - orders - himself not to see it again, and for brief minutes he manages to surface and move and swallow a bit of dry, hard biscuit and smile at the people who shake his hand and pat his shoulder. _There is an observation, Sherlock: the human body can perform its essential functions unaware, inattentive, automatic. _The memory of a poem from school _unbeing dead._

Leave a note. Leave a note when. Goodbye John.

* * *

The next bit is harder.

There is still the world - flat, hardly noticed. There is still the afterimage _aftersound aftersmell thank you, Sherlock, for that parting gift_ in his mind, burned there, looping.

And yes,

that would be quite enough

But somewhere, his mind _this is my hard drive_ finds the resources to consider the inverse horror: foot on the ledge, wind in hair, looking down, goodbye John dropping the phone and _were you frightened_ one tiny step and this free-fall plummet arms spinning _were you_ _cold _wind speed rush burning in the eyes _did you close them did you look _Jesus what goes through a man's mind _your mind your mind _in that tiny second before he steps off the ledge _were you frightened_ as the pavement rises up and what in that last moment _did you -_

_not frightened I think not frightened I hope you thought of Isaac Newton Daedalus 9.8 meters per second per second_

* * *

The fury shakes him, sometimes, leaves him quaking. This thing Sherlock has done; John wouldn't have believed him capable of such violence. Such disruption and damage _I'm just your friend_ it is difficult to believe. He knows so deeply now _well, you're the lucky one, aren't you _that he wasted his sympathy on the murder victims; that the mother father sister stand stuck and battered _only took a couple seconds for you, didn't it_ by tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

It is unforgivable, utterly damning.

* * *

_What can we deduce, Sherlock? Patterns of lighting in the client's residence indicate fitful sleep and early morning wakefulness. Client's_ _left hand shows slight but persistent trembling. Skin is pale. Dark circles under the eyes. Two days' beard. Loose clothing reveals recent weight loss between four and five kilograms. _

Eight weeks and he has not yet ticked off the half-life of the memory_. _He has not gone one hour waking without the loop: the black shape falling _you _and the roaring in his ears and the metal smell of blood _yours _on red pavement.

In every shop the papers _your eyes your hair your coat collar_

* * *

Ten and a half weeks, and he is on the tube one day, sitting next to a teenage girl who is reading Cummings. She has tears in her eyes _here is the deepest secret nobody knows _and John wants to say, wants to put his hand on hers _I know I know it is like being cracked open_.

He makes himself frozen and still, does not speak nor shift his hand.

He thinks about the uncountable others - mother father sister - where they are, and how the lot of them move about London, invisible to each other. Seems there ought to be a secret sign _not tears on the tube, not trembling - mustn't frighten the unknowing - let it be poetry _that gives them permission to speak.

* * *

The world expands again, in small ripples, out from the core.

Leave a note. Leave a note when. Goodbye John.

Until one day, near-asleep, the memory expands to:

Keep your eyes on me.

No.

Keep your eyes fixed on me.

He wakes up, and _why would you say that do that to me_

* * *

It is unforgivable, utterly damning, and yet

_I don't understand - why would it upset you _

it is possible, barely, that Sherlock

_speaking to Moriarty standing on the ledge making the phone call _

did not understand.

That perplexing, infuriating blindness: the absence of sentiment.

There is a tiny scrap of conscience in John _not yet, too soon_ that tells him fury is not the correct response. That he can't condemn the blind man _oh I damn well can_ for his failure to see.

Arrogance. Selfish arrogance.

_Not good? _

* * *

Lestrade has the mobile phone from the roof. Taken down, with Moriarty's body, the day Sherlock died. It has been transcribed and filed away into evidence and Lestrade has offered to let him hear the audio if it would somehow help, something about closure _God, what difference does it make if Moriarty is dead and you are dead_ but he fears that if he has it, he will do nothing but listen and listen and remember _oh, that would quite please you, wouldn't it, the fabulous Sherlock Holmes as mobile phone ghost of 221B._

Leave a note. Leave a note when. Goodbye John.

Until one day, awake and sitting by the window, his memory expands to:

Stay where you are. Do this for me. This phone call is my note.

And he thinks of the lab and the phone call summoning him to Baker Street and two panicked cab rides and _then you were on the roof I don't, I can't understand_

John is not Sherlock. He is not all deduction and mad, stirring intuition. But, after all, he made his way through medical school. And a year and a half at Baker Street. It is all data and science and studying the evidence.

_And besides you've already made a ghost of yourself._

He goes to Scotland Yard and asks Lestrade for the audio.

"Just sentiment," John says. Lestrade gives him a look - he's cracking, yes, that would be how it looks - but it is of little importance.

* * *

It takes him three days _turn around and walk back the way you came_ to listen from beginning to end _okay look up I'm on the rooftop_ because the dread is so strong - he is twice sick - and after hearing it once _nobody could be that clever_ he listens only one more time _it's a trick it's just a magic trick_ to write it down for himself_ keep your eyes fixed on me please would you do this for me_ the words the letters on the page straight and objective, voiceless and without cadence.

_This phone call - it's my note. What people do, don't they? Leave a note? Leave a note when? Goodbye John._

He folds the paper and carries it with him.

* * *

Evidence for the prosecution: The phone tossed down, the black shape falling, scrambling through the air, the black hair wet and the blood pooling, the arm limp and no pulse. The eyes fixed and staring.

Evidence for the defense: The call from the paramedics, the dispassionate coldness. _She's my landlady. _The bicycle._ It's a trick, just a magic trick. Keep your eyes fixed on me. Tell anyone who will listen. _

The fact that _I know you I know you I know you would not_

* * *

He goes on the telly - only once, a legitimate nighttime interview with Thomas Hurley of News Nation. He tells them. There is a modest cheque. After that, the reporters don't follow him so closely. Sherlock is all cheekbones and arrogance. The tabloids can't sell a somber little sad man.

He keeps the sheet of paper with him, tucked inside a green and white paperback. He studies it on the tube.

_I know you; I know you would not take the smallest step without seven layers of purpose and counterpurpose._

John knows what is happening. The army has made him intimate with denial and bargaining _God if you let me live I swear I will _and he understands that his mind is searching for some meaning, some sweet and secret and impossible meaning in Sherlock's last words. Bargaining doesn't work, he knows. The words are pain; they are distress; they are grief. Nothing more.

This is the real world: the world where there is a lurching fall and blood in the black hair _please no_ and no pulse.

What his mind wants _you not to hit the ground you not to be dead_ is not a thing that can happen in real life. To allow the thought _not you _or the speculation_ not dead _is weakness. To say it out loud _how _would be madness.

In real life. No one could be that clever.

_except_

_except_

He begins to sleep again at night. Begins to taste his food.

* * *

A leaf falls. Autumn passes.

The tabloid half-life is short; they are onto their next targets. Anorexic TV host. Military hero left homeless. Politician gay sex scandal, wife stands by him.

One beginning twilight John looks up and the tree is lighted at Trafalgar Square. One day he looks and it is gone.

Winter is gray and snowless and it passes.

* * *

and

later

It is Saturday, and just-spring _the trill of a far whistle the shrill cries of children _when he comes to the front door and begins up the stairs.

The sound is _pianissimo_ first in his ears, he is up three steps before it settles in his mind and then his legs go out from under him. He twists his ankle and struggles to catch himself, wrenches his wrist, his hand, and lands hard on the wooden stair.

A wave of pain rattles him _right, that'll be a broken finger_ and the tiniest inkling of joy hums in him _dolce, crescendo_ and the glass-clear note of the violin


End file.
